I do not like prequels. Most of the time, they fall flat on their face. It is hard to build tension when you already know the outcome. Plus, they often ruin the mystery or story details of their future counterparts. Arkham Origins is not one of those times.
Picking up five years before Arkham Asylum, on Christmas Eve, we find a less refined and more stubborn Batman cleaning up the streets of Gotham, which is on the verge of all-out anarchy as its police force, already corrupt, is put under more pressure when a bounty is put on Batman’s head and eight super-villain assassins arrive to collect it.
Coming off the almost universally praised Arkham City, Arkham Origins has some big shoes to fill, and it fills them admirably well. While I believe Arkham Asylum is still the best of the three, Arkham Origins manages to surprise with a plot that, in some ways, is better than Arkham City. Where Arkham City threatened to go off the rails with a narrative that was all over the place, Origins’ structure feels tighter and has a more natural and progressive flow to it, despite its open-world nature. Even the side missions, and there are a lot of them, feel more part of a whole. While Origins does not have the gravitas of what Arkham City accomplished, the story is nonetheless engrossing and full of its own twists and turns that help alleviate the prequel-itis syndrome.
Some new mechanics help freshen up Origins. For one, the detective vision has been expanded to become a full-on crime investigation function. Whenever the mission calls for it, you can tap into your detective vision and reconstruct the crime scene, finding clues by rewinding and forwarding the events in order to solve the situation. I found this incredibly intriguing and always felt giddy when the time came to turn it on.
The level design is also to be commended. Some of the best set pieces in the Arkham games are found here. From a creepy Joker fun house to the overly elaborate machinations of the Mad Hatter, there is no shortage of new sights to see. Gotham itself has been expanded, retaining a good portion of what was in Arkham City, but with additional territory to explore. To reduce downtime, a smartly implemented fast point system has been added whereby you can travel instantly between locations. There is actually a Far Cry 3 feel to the whole design, which pleased me greatly.
In terms of the gameplay, the Batman has a few new tricks up his sleeve. The now famous and still most enjoyable part of the game, the invisible predator mode, is still a blast to play through. Now you have access to more ways of taking down your opponents with a remote bat claw that adds another dimension to taking down your foes, be it tightrope takedowns or hooking them up against objects that can disable them all together.
In combat, all the stuff that Arkham City expanded on is there and more. The new animations are great, and the level of satisfaction you get from executing a flawless combo attack is still intact. However, this is also where Arkham Origins begins to stumble. While reducing some of the overwhelming frustration from City, Origins can still be quite a pain to play in combat. Batman is oftentimes up against way too many enemies with too much equipment on their side, and the counter button, still broken from Arkham City, struggles to keep up.
Adding to the frustration are some bugs I encountered. When Arkham Origins first launched, it was infamous for having game-breaking glitches. Luckily, having given the game some months for bugs to be addressed, it was mostly smooth and I barely ran into any glitches that a restart could not fix. None of this seriously affected my time in the campaign, fortunately.
One thing that really stood out, though, and bugged me was the insistence on Quick Time Events (QTEs) in the middle of cinematics. Some of them worked, but in other instances their transition was faulty and inconsistent. After playing DMC, which knew when to be cinematics and when to be gameplay, I found myself quite annoyed at this.
The one truly new mode Arkham Origins offers is multiplayer. The basics boil down to three playable sides, the Joker Gang, the Bane Gang and Batman and Robin. Playing as either gang puts you in a third-person shooter design whereby your goal is to take down the other team’s reinforcements to zero. Using guns, grenades, drones and your own set of gadgets, you and your teammates work to whittle down the opposing team while avoiding getting taken down by Batman and Robin. The latter two’s job is to take down as many of the gangsters till an intimidation bar is filled, but must avoid getting taken out lest the bar goes down.
This really should sound fun, but my playtime has been mixed at best. There are not enough players and the lobbies suffer from long wait times and frequent, and I mean frequent, dropouts both in lobby and in game. The heroes have a much lower learning curve on account of your playtime in the campaign, but the individual soldiers can take a while to figure out. To top it off, the game does suffer from lag and host issues. When it does work, it is enjoyable, but the whole thing comes off as having needed more time to cook.
In the end, Arkham Origins stands toe-to-toe with the likes of Arkham Asylum and City. A surprisingly engrossing narrative and strong level design make Batman’s third time a wonderful charm. Despite its issues, it is a great game worthy of your time.
